Ironside: Memorable Raymond Burr Role

Canadian born actor Raymond Burr was well known to the American public, and even somewhat to the international public, by the mid 1960s, after a long stint of portraying defense attorney "Perry Mason" in the CBS television series of that name. But Burr was also known for numerous movie roles prior to his television duties, especially in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window," which starred James Stewart and Grace Kelly, in which Burr played the murderer, and also when he played the lead as a reporter in one of the best known monster pictures of all time, "Godzilla, King of the Monsters," not uncommonly just called "Godzilla" by the public. Raymond Burr's personal life only garnered much attention after he died in the second half of 1993. He had had a quiet, long term relationship of more than 35 years with a man named Robert Benevides, to whom Burr left everything.

Right after "Perry Mason" ended its run, Raymond Burr took on the character of Robert T. Ironside, the former chief of detectives in San Francisco, making him known to many associates simply as "Chief." Ironside is confined to a wheelchair after being severely wounded in his spine by a sniper. He subsequently becomes a special adviser to the San Francisco Police Department and its commissioner, played by Gene Lyons. As support, Ironside has a detective, Sergeant Ed Brown, played by Don Galloway, and Officer Eve Whitfield, played by Barbara Anderson. Further, he has Mark Sanger, played by Don Mitchell, as his own personal live in aide, who helps take care of Ironside and who drives his specially equipped van. Sanger, who is black,* is a young man turning his life around from crime to student, and Ironside's confidence in him helps to keep Mark moving forward. Ironside is a stern, blunt and sarcastic leader for his little group, as he tries to teach his knowledge of detective work and life to his "students." He angers them at times, and ruffles their feathers, but they see and understand his purpose, so his cantankerous personality becomes an endearing element to them as the "Chief." After four seasons, Barbara Anderson chose to leave the series and she was replaced by Elizabeth Baur, as Officer Fran Belding.

I regularly watched "Ironside," which was on NBC on Thursday evenings, except for one season, when it aired on Tuesday evenings. The series began in 1967 and ended in early 1975. I recently bought the first season of the show, and remarkably, I recalled one of the episodes, not in great detail, but the gist of it. It certainly fits in with today and all of the events of the last couple of years about people shot by police and police shot by criminals, sometimes in ambush. It dealt with Officer Whitfield shooting and killing a robber who stops to fire at her while fleeing with his older accomplice. It turns out, the guy is only 17 years old and his mother is embittered at Whitfield, who is distraught over the boy's death, even though he fired at her. While not always so easily seen in real life, the episode clearly shows Officer Whitfield fired and killed the man as he tried to kill her, but the 1960s were tense times, as civil rights marches and anti Vietnam war protests developed into violence at times, bringing confrontation between demonstrators and police, and the then inevitable charges and counter charges. Remember, no camera phones in those days to show what had happened, and unless a reporter with a camera crew was lucky enough to catch the events on film, it often came down to one side's word against the other, with no pictures or film to support either side's claims.

The theme song of the series was composed by Quincy Jones.

Since I have only watched the first season, I may do another article later, as I plan to watch the other seasons of the show too.

* During the 1960s, Hollywood began to make more of an effort to use black American performers in more than just little roles. Some examples: Bill Cosby was given a starring role alongside Robert Culp in NBC's "I Spy;" Diahann Carroll got the starring part in NBC's "Julia;" Ivan Dixon played Sergeant Kinch Kinchloe in CBS's "Hogan Heroes;" and comedian Flip Wilson made regular appearances on NBC's "Laugh In," before scoring big with comedy recording albums and then his own television show on NBC in the early 1970s. Black performers also began to get more guest appearances on television shows.      

Photo is of the Shout! Factory Season 1 DVD Box Set

WORD HISTORY:
Stern-English has two words of this spelling, but this is for the adjective, meaning "strict, hard, tough, very serious in behavior." It is related to "stare," "start," "startle," and "stark," all original English words from Old Germanic. It goes back to Indo European "ster," which had the notion of, "stiff, tight, rigid." This gave Old Germanic "sturnjaz," which meant, "astounded" (that is, "serious expression firmly fixed with amazement"). This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "styrne," meaning, "strict, hard, severe." This became "sterne," before the modern form. "Stern" is closely linked with forms of "stare" in the other Germanic languages, which makes it somewhat difficult to separate them, but Dutch has "stuurs," meaning "harsh, unkind, rough, brutal," German has "stur," meaning, "pigheaded, stubborn, obstinate," and also, "störrisch," meaning, "stubborn, mulish, hardheaded," Swedish has "stursk," meaning, "impudent, arrogant."